"Yeah. Yeah."
Jack foggily groped his way toward the john and closed the door behind
him. I heard the water running in there. I stood around and looked
blithe and unconcerned, which I wasn't. Joanie had her back to me,
and I was running my eyetracks up and down that tanned back and those
lovely curving rear cheeks.
A few moments later Jack came out, with his face washed, his hair
combed, and his wristwatch wound. We were all ready for breakfast.
"Let's go," Joanie said.
We left the cabin--no need to lock any doors in the Sunland Health
Colony--and started down the road to the mess hall.
At this point I think I ought to hold things up and give you some idea
of who I am and how I happened to be strolling down that road in the
buff on that particular morning.
My name is Al Fieldston. I'm thirty-four years old. For the past five
years I had been working for an advertising agency. Not Madison Avenue,
but the next best thing--a Wacker Drive firm, Chicago. Give me the
middle west any day. Over those five years I had worked up the scale
from an underpaid trainee to an overpaid copywriter. At the present
time I was drawing $14,000 a year, which is not terribly much by the
standards of some agencies, but which was plenty for a bachelor like
me with relatively simple tastes. Besides, there were frequent raises,
and all you had to do to survive at our firm was to smile nicely and
turn your work in on time. It wasn't the cutthroat sort of operation
that some advertising agencies are. It was a nice, friendly place,
easy-going and relaxed--which might possibly explain why our billings
weren't all they could have been.
To cover briefly the twenty-nine years before my donning of the gray
flannel suit: running backwards, it looks like this--two and a half
years on the editorial staff of a reactionary Chicago daily paper, two
years spent unwillingly in the grasp of the United States Army, one
year spent as chief-cook-and-bottle-washer for an Illinois country
weekly, one year spent obtaining a Master's degree in Journalism at
Columbia University, four years going to college at Northwestern.
Before that comes high school, puberty, grade school, and all the
rest, going back to birth in Chicago (South Side) slightly more than a
third of a century ago.
So much for past history.
Now, how did I happen to be waking up in a nudist colony with a
big-busted blonde parading around in the raw outside my window?
It isn't because I'm a crank or a nature faddist or anything like that.
I'm not. I don't mix wheat germ and blackstrap molasses into anything
I eat. Nor am I morbidly anxious to see bare bodies of either sex.
Masculine nudity has never fascinated me, while in thirty-four years of
bachelorhood (minus seventeen months of marriage that I forgot to tell
you about above--they happened while I was working for that Chicago
newspaper) I've acquired a reasonably good knowledge of the outward
anatomy of the feminine body. I'm well aware that some have more than
others, but that the basic parts are pretty much the same from one
to the next. So it wasn't merely to ogle a lot of bare bosoms and
delectable pink buttocks that I came away to the Sunland Health Colony.
No, it was a combination of several other factors. Prime among them
was the matter of my advertising agency being the easy-going sort, as
I said. You certainly know that every copywriter on Wacker Drive--and
Madison too, of course--thinks privately that he might have been a
novelist, if only things had worked out a little differently. Perhaps
one out of five of these would-be novelists actually has a particular
novel all plotted out, ready to be written "as soon as the pressure
eases off a little." And maybe one out of eight of this latter group
actually gets around to writing all or most of that projected novel,
some day.
Well, I was a member of that one-out-of-five category that had a novel
all plotted out. I wanted to move on to the one-out-of-eight that
actually gets the damned book written.
It was about this time that I found out about our leave-of-absence
plan. In keeping with the relaxed atmosphere of our shop, a scheme
exists to permit copywriters and such people to go off by themselves
for a while and work on any private creative projects they may have.
The deal is that you can have up to ninety days, three solid months.
Without pay, of course, but you can't have everything. All you had to
do was talk to the right man.
I talked. I came out of the VP's office with permission to take the
months of June, July, and August off, provided my desk was clear when
I left. The first three weeks of that period would be considered my
vacation for the year, and I would be paid for them. The subsequent
weeks, up to a total of nine, could be taken without pay. When I
returned to the agency, I would slip right back into my slot without
suffering any disadvantages.
There was a risk, of course. There was always the possibility that
some bright boy from below might shove his way into the accounts I was
handling, while I wasn't around to defend myself. But I had to take
that chance. I had to risk getting scragged while I was away. I figured
ours wasn't the throat-cutting kind of place, and, anyway, I had a
couple of good friends who I could probably trust to look out for my
interests while I was gone.
The next step was to find a place to go.
Staying in Chicago to write the book was out of the question. For one
thing, _nobody_ stays in Chicago in the summertime if he can arrange to
be somewhere else. For another, I knew that if I spent the summer close
to my telephone I would never get a page written. There would be calls
from the office, calls from old friends, calls from old enemies, shows
to see, girls to make, etc., etc., etc. I had to get out of town.
Where to?
At this point Jack Meehan came to my aid. Jack was a buddy of mine
from my Northwestern days. These days he earns a living--to put it
mildly--by writing journalistic-type articles for the big slicks.
You've seen his work in the _Post_, the _Digest_, and a lot of other
places, under a variety of names. In his thirty-odd years he's been
through three wives (he had already been divorced once before his
freshman year at college) and he was pulling in something like fifty
grand a year from his typewriter lately, which is fair dough in any
line.
It was the middle of May, two weeks before the beginning of my leave of
absence, and I still hadn't decided where I was going to go to write my
novel. And then Jack Meehan called. He made a habit of keeping in touch
with me, and generally I got a call from him every time he landed some
juicy assignment.
He had one this time. After we talked around for a few minutes, he
said, "You'll never guess what sort of story I'm about to start on
now."
"I know. _Life_ is going to smuggle you into King Saud's harem
disguised as a eunuch."
"Not quite, pal. Try again."
"You're going to play shortstop for a girl baseball team, and
illustrate your articles with juicy locker-room candids."
"Wrong again. I'm going to spend the summer in a nudist colony."
"You aren't serious!"
"Why the hell not? You think I'm inhibited, man?"
"What's the deal?" I asked.
It was a good one. One of the big magazines wanted him to do a
feature on Nudism. The idea was an unsensational piece, stressing
the individualistic character of the nudists, painting them as
staunch rugged spirits in the middle of a society of conformists. Any
illustrations would be strictly tame, because this was for a family
magazine. There was about three thousand bucks in the assignment for
Jack, which wouldn't be terribly little for a job that would take him
no more than a few weeks of researching.
But on top of that he had arranged an even better deal. Taking his
slick-mag outline to a hard-cover house, he got himself commissioned
to do a full-length expansion of the magazine article, complete with
some rather more revealing photos. The book people figured they
had a hot thing, and they wanted Jack to spend the whole summer in
the nudist camp, really getting to know the people on all sorts of
levels. The advance they had given him made me practically swallow my
bubble-gum. And they expected tremendous sales, television plugs and
interviews for Jack, nationwide publicity, and maybe even a magazine
condensation of the book after publication, thereby rounding out a neat
mag-to-book-to-mag double play.
"I've been shopping around for a place," Jack went on, "and I've got
a honey. She's around sixty miles out of Chicago, in pretty secluded
territory. I've talked the whole deal out with them and they've agreed
to let me stay for the whole summer. I can't mention any names, of
course, but it's otherwise okay with them about the article and the
book. I drove out there last week to have a look. It's a lot of little
cabins and some community buildings. Just like a camp for kids, get it,
only the kids are grown up and they don't wear any pants."
"You see any of the inmates?" I asked.
"Just a couple. There's only about nine or ten people there now. It
begins crowding up after the first of June, and by midsummer they have
around fifty."
"And the ones you saw were just wandering around in the altogether?"
"You guessed it, sonny." I could hear him chuckling over the wire. "I
saw a grand total of three nudists. There was an old gentleman of about
seventy, and a boy who looked like he was around five. It was sort of a
disappointment."
"You said there were _three_," I reminded him.
"Oh. Yeah," he said. "The third one was a girl. Twenty-three or so. Big
blonde with the nicest pair of knobs you ever want to dream about. I
guess she sort of slipped my mind."
"I'll bet she did."
"She's the friendly type, too. I passed her in the car on the road, and
she waved at me, and like I mean _wow_, man! Those big beautiful things
hanging under her chin like a couple of howitzers, and I damn near
drove into a tree when I saw her." He paused. "It sounds like a restful
way to spend a vacation. Swim and sun and read, and peck out a couple
lines a day on the typewriter. And when the summer's over I hand in my
copy and the publishers shower me with gold. Don't you wish you were a
writer, boy? A _real_ writer, I mean, not one of those Wacker wacks."
"Yeah," I said remotely. "Yeah, sure." An idea was springing to life
in my mind, full-blown and giving off radioactive emissions. "Tell me
something, Jack."
"Yeah?"
"You think this nudist camp might have room for a friend of yours?"
_CHAPTER TWO_
So that was how I got involved. Jack was a little surprised when I
popped the question, but after I explained about the leave-of-absence
deal and the novel I planned to write he got very enthusiastic and told
me he'd see what he could do for me.
An hour later, he called back.
"I just had a talk with the director of the colony," he told me. "He
says there's room for you, provided you pass the interview."
"Interview? What kind of interview?"
"Oh, nothing much," Jack said. "Just a sort of screening that they put
you through to make sure you aren't perverted or queer or anything.
They want nice healthy-minded people at their camp. They don't want
anyone going there out of evil impulses."
"I get it," I said. "Okay, when's the interview?"
"Are you free tomorrow night?"
"I suppose."
"Good. I'll meet you downtown for dinner and then I'll drive you out to
his place. He lives in Cicero."
We had a good dinner the next night, and by half past eight we were
speeding over to Cicero. The last place I expected to find the director
of a nudist camp living was the staid, ultra-conservative suburb of
Cicero, but you never can tell. Jack drove his shiny Mercedes 300-SL
as though it were an old Ford he had picked up on the junkheap and
souped up; he came within an ice of knocking dents in the little rocket
half a dozen times, but he didn't seem to let it bother him. I told
myself that if I owned a car that cost $13,000, I'd treat it with more
respect than Jack did. But then I figured that if I earned Jack's kind
of money maybe the price of the car wouldn't matter much to me either.
At any rate, a little while later we zeroed in on a quiet, suburban
street, and I found myself marching up to the front door of a
nice-looking stone-walled house about twenty-five years old. I don't
know what I was expecting to answer the door--somebody in the nude,
probably--and so I was just a bit startled when a pleasant-looking
woman of about forty, fully dressed, answered the bell.
She beamed at Jack. "Hello, Mr. Meehan. And this is your friend,
Mr.--ah--"
"Fieldston," I supplied. "Al Fieldston."
"Yes. Won't you both come in. Dr. Richards is on the telephone just at
the moment, but he'll be with you right away. I'm Mrs. Richards, Mr.
Fieldston. I like people to call me Elinor."
I nodded and smiled, and Jack and I went in. We were led into a
nicely-furnished place, the tables and chairs in modern decor but
having an agreeably _used_ look about them. There was an enormous
bookcase jam-packed, spreading over two entire walls. I sat down in an
armchair, Jack took the couch, and Elinor Richards beamed at us both.
A moment of awkward silence ensued. I was a little startled by three
framed photos hanging on the wall of an alcove. One of them showed
Elinor Richards, looking plump and bosomy, wearing absolutely nothing
at all. The second picture showed a tall, lean man that I took to be
Dr. Richards, and he was without a figleaf too. The third picture
was the killer, though. It showed a dark-haired girl in her teens
smiling sweetly into the camera. She was wearing the nicest pair of
mammary protruberances I had seen in a long while, but nothing else,
but _nothing_. It was the daughter of the house, I guessed. It seemed
an odd way to do things, leaving nude photos of the family hanging up
where casual visitors could get a look at the nubile daughter in the
altogether, as well as Dr. and Mrs.
I was still pondering this point when the girl herself appeared. She
was dressed, incidentally. She looked to be sixteen, maybe seventeen.
She was the willowy kind, but her sweater was tight and well-filled.
She was wearing a plaid skirt and bobby-sox. A regular teenager, I
figured. Automatically I glanced up at the wall, where I could view her
without the encumbrances of the sweater and skirt, and I turned red and
looked away guiltily. She saw me flick my eyes from the picture to the
real thing, but she didn't show any trace of embarrassment.
Elinor said, "This is my daughter Sandra. You've met Mr. Meehan, dear.
This is a friend of his, Mr. Al Fieldston."
"Hello," I said.
"Very pleased to meet you," she husked in a siren's voice, deep and
throaty. She looked straight into my eyes and I squirmed. Maybe she
was only sixteen, but she was pure concentrated sex. She was saying
_very-pleased-to-meet-you_ with her body as well as her lips, and let
me tell you, it's a discomforting thing to get that kind of greeting
from a teenager. It's something like picking up a piece of rope and
discovering it's really a high-voltage power line. I sizzled.
She floated across the room, giving me the full benefit of her figure
in profile, and another quick glance at the photo on the wall made it
evident that everything she was showing me was genuine. Sitting down
demurely, she crossed her legs and her skirt rode up above one knee.
That struck me as funny. Here was a teenage nudist, accustomed to
walking around completely bare-bottomed, but as long as she had clothes
on she was determined to pull little coquettish tricks with her sweater
and her skirt this way. Funny people, women are.
At that moment Dr. Richards appeared. In clothes, he looked extremely
dignified. He was a spare, lanky man somewhat past fifty, with thick
grey hair and a conservative taste in clothing. He smiled at me and
said, "Ah. Mr. Fieldston."
We had a couple of seconds of hand-shaking and greeting. Then Elinor
took orders for drinks, and while we were waiting for them Dr. Richards
began to fill me in on the Sunland Health Colony pitch.
The colony was fifteen years old, he said. It had been founded by some
philanthropic old codger from Valparaiso who had enjoyed sunbathing
himself, and who left a tract of land and a non-profit organization to
administer it. Dr. Richards--who mentioned that he was a professor of
math at one of the local universities--was the current director, the
top man of a board of five.
"My academic year ends early in June," he said. "I'll be going up there
then."
"With your whole family?"
"Of course. We're all devoted outdoors people. Sandra has been a nudist
since she was old enough to walk."
We got down to the important part of the interview. He wanted to know
all about me--what I did for a living, where I had been educated, on
and on and on. Mostly he was trying to find out about my motives for
wanting to go to his little skin-camp. I told him about the novel I
wanted to write, and how I wanted peace and quiet and fresh air while I
wrote it. He didn't exactly ask me about my sex life, but by skirting
around the subject he managed to get told that I was a reasonably
normal bachelor who wasn't likely to engage in obscene acts in the mess
hall or to creep around at night pinching the other colonists.
After about forty minutes of this sort of stuff he seemed to be
satisfied with my sincerity.
He said, "You must understand that we have certain rules that have to
be observed. If you think any of them are too harsh, say so now and
we'll have to consider your application withdrawn."
"What are they?"
"First," he said, "we don't permit the use of alcoholic beverages in
the colony. This is strictly enforced. You see, we can't run the risk
of being accused of sponsoring wild orgies, Mr. Fieldston. Beer is
available on request from the kitchen.
"Second, we prohibit unauthorized picture-taking. You can bring a
camera with you, but all film must be developed on the premises and
permission must be obtained from any person who happens to be in the
picture, or else the negative will be destroyed. Obviously we must
protect the privacy of our members."
"Obviously," I said.
"Third, you must obtain permission before bringing any outside guests
into the camp. This should be self-explanatory. We don't want our
grounds over-run with curiosity-seekers.
"Fourth, the matter of dress. We don't _require_ complete nudity. When
the weather is inclement, naturally, our people dress accordingly. As
for the rest of the time, we naturally prefer complete nudity, but no
one is forced to adhere to it. However, we do object to dressing in a
manner calculated to arouse erotic sensations--as, for example, a woman
wearing an extremely scanty bikini. And likewise, if you show a total
reluctance to remove your clothing at any time in public, we'll have to
assume that you have come among us as a _voyeur_, with the intention
of spying on us. We reserve the right to request your departure at any
time."
"I understand that," I said.
"All right, then. These are the chief conditions under which you'll
live. Such minor regulations as we have are posted in each cabin. The
fee is $40 a week, which includes lodgings, linens, and three meals a
day."
"That sounds extremely reasonable."
"We're not interested in profit, Mr. Fieldston," Dr. Richards said
piously. "Our only aim is to provide a place where those people free of
the shackling inhibitions of society may bare their bodies to God's own
sunlight. Do you find our company appealing?"
"I'm very anxious to enroll."
"Very well, then. Would you fill out this blank?"
He gave me a mimeographed questionnaire, and I went through it quickly,
checking off the boxes that asked whether I had ever had a venereal
disease, whether I had ever been convicted of a sexual offense, and
such. While I was filling out the form, I noticed that both Sandra and
her mother had quietly left the room. I was wondering why, and I found
out quickly enough.
Dr. Richards looked at the questionnaire and smiled. "There's only
one formality remaining. Would you please remove your clothes, Mr.
Fieldston?"